life of each is at that one point involved. It is not only the often
recognized "conflict between Religion and Science," which was long ago
worn threadbare. It is the fact that both Science and Religion are out of
joint with themselves.

The battle-ground may, in a broad way, be named Psychology. All problems
and all discussions of the real issues arise from, involve, or center
around, the nature, laws that govern, and destiny of the Human Soul.

From the very nature of these problems, their intricacy and diversity,
they remained the latest in the categories of Science to be seriously
investigated.

For the same reasons they have been the subject of dogma and revelation in
religion, with doors slammed in the face of all investigation as not only
useless, but wicked, and often made dangerous.

Between the agnosticism of Science, and the dogmatism of Religion,
knowledge has been crucified, and there it hangs to-day, a crux to the
one, and the Cross to the other: The same problem, only facing different
ways.

And yet the Reconciliation is not far to seek. It is difficult for the
average churchman, or theologian, to apprehend and remember, that a
_fact_, in nature or in life, is one thing; and that the _interpretation_,
or _explanation_ put upon that fact, by any man, or body of men, is
another thing entirely. Here is where Belief, Dogma, and Heresy come in.
As soon as one denies the interpretation, he is accused of denying the
fact, no matter how illogical or absurd the interpretation may be, on the
one hand, or how openly he admits the fact as the basis of his own
conclusions, on the other.

Few individuals will be found nowadays who deny the _fact_ of the birth,
life, mission, and death of Jesus of Nazareth. But the interpretations
read into the fact differ so widely as to result in almost numberless
sects, and an endless war of words. All this theological wrangling may be
focalized at one point, almost on a single word. Did Jesus of Nazareth
differ in kind or in _Degree_, from the rest of Humanity?

If he had "a like nature with ours," as he and his disciples took the
utmost pains to declare, and to demonstrate, then he differed in _degree_
of unfoldment, and was indeed, our Elder Brother; He differed as the holy
differs from the unholy; as the pure differs from the impure; as the kind
and charitable differ from the unkind and the uncharitable. It is just at
this point that all the theological juggling comes in,